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And to add a comment, click in the box below the idea.

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Voting

There have been a variety of verbal excuses given my Husband delaying / denying our CR1 Visa and neither of us have received written documentation or be given any direction. First it was the age difference, I am older, then it was my prior marriages, now it is that we didn't have a "cultural" wedding. Our second anniversary is in March 2012. The Consular has not adhered to their own documented regulations. They have not
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Voting

Also with 221g Administrative processing, there should be a deadline on when it would be completed. I have read a lot of forums that some people have been waiting for years to get a response. Others are still waiting. During this long waiting period, the petitioner and beneficiary go thru pain and suffering, and the frustration that the US government is not doing enough for them. It is also frustrating to call USCIS and
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Voting

The State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) offers very little information on the State Department website about how the domestic part of the U.S. refugee resettlement program works. Of course, lack of information is the antitheses of an “open” federal government unit. Missing are comprehensive basic rules and of the program. For example, how much money is provide to resettlement agencies?
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Voting

There is a new disturbing trend which is started by Indian embassy in Dc of NOT accpeting US passport from US citizens of certain backgrounds. As our visa system is based on reciprocacy, my idea is to start a initiative that ensures ALL US Citizens get to travel of their US passport. If som country does not accepts our passport, we should be agressive in getting that fixed.

Voting

Hi,
Thanks for allowing citizens to provide feedback on your new OpenGov System. This is a great example of how democratic systems can improve not only information literacy at the state level, but also to improve collaboration at the federal level. As always, communicating change to the masses is often one of the state's toughest challenges, and with the OpenGov system, this may alleviate some of these barriers.
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Voting

Other government agencies should take a cue from the NIH, which has started to edit Wikipedia pages relating to health issues: http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/2009/09_04_2009/story2.htm
When a small amount of information is added to Wikipedia, it is like planting a seed; other people come along and add water, and everyone shares the fruit. Wikipedia editors today have high standards; they write professionally
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Voting

Rather than post each of my "OpenGov" Ideas at 27 different websites, I have posted them at the GSA's website (since they are in the forefront of the OpenGov initiative). So, by this notice, the members of the OpenGov Team for your agency have been informed of those ideas. (At least, now, you can't say you were unaware of them.)
http://opengsa.ideascale.com/a/pmd/29640-6960
ALSO -- Your OpenGov Team members,
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Voting

Application of New Information Technology to the Transparency Objective
of the Open Government Directive
While the Open Government Directive offers an unprecedented challenge to Federal Agencies, information technology is now available to assist Agencies in achieving the Transparency objective of the Directive in a rapid, cost-effective manner. Throughout the Directive, the need to proactively provide easy to use,
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Voting

WHAT
Urge governments to publish granular permalinks for all documents on their websites.
WHY
* Enable citizens to reliably cite government websites on their personal blogs, on public sites like Wikipedia, or elsewhere.
* Provide unique identifiers that enable aggregation of citations.
* Make the civic discourse surrounding government websites more discoverable.
HOW
* An easy-to-deploy archival
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Voting

Fix ITAR. Small companies are being handicapped by having to devote extraordinary amounts of time and money to comply with ITAR policies. Talk to commercial space companies (and other impacted industries) about their experiences, determine what's broken and how to better the situation, and then actually fix it.
Find the middle ground where certain information is kept from those that do not need to acquire it but small
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Voting

Disruptive Technologies: A Holistic, Pragmatic Approach
New technologies are emerging at a faster pace than Agencies can swallow. The rate of obsolescence outpaces the pace of change.
Despite the new technology flood, Agencies lack a strategy to on-board these disruptions. As a result, they often react, flounder, or simply ignore them.
We can solve these problems in four major areas of practice:
Leadership
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Voting

While reiterating on transparency, improvement of social relations and government-to-people reciprocity, big shots tend to deviate from the mainstream of our everyday vital commodities – rights, duties, and responsibilities. It is a paradox but a fact; my case that turned into a nightmare from the very beginning could vividly picture how “paper”, not a common sense, determines destiny. This is about an abandoned US citizen
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Voting

We send armed forces recruiters around to the schools, why not send out diplomatic recruiters too? Why not do some interviews on the tv channels to education people.
Most kids and US citizens, for that matter, have no idea about foreign service officer careers unless they grew up in a family of diplomats. I constantly come across kids in university that have no clue about the possibility of a diplomatic career or what
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Voting

Aloha All, Pertaining to Family Based Visa Interviews. Having read the topic on this site and several others,and being a victim of the rubber stamp era. Why can't the US Embassies/Consulates utilize the technolgies available ,in stead of using couriers ,ups,or the us post office.Time is the enemy to the visa process ,the system processes enable lazy consular officers to pass it back to square one because they fell behind
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Voting

Background: Registration can be done in person at an embassy, on-line or in some cases both.
In my particular case I registered in person as the on-line system was not yet in service. Shortly thereafter the system did go on-line. I then registered on-line and logged all trips abroad. In most of the cases once I marked my trip as complete I also stopped receiving the email messages specific to that country.
However,
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Voting

Problem: Embassy jobs (not foreign service officer type) should be mandated to publicly advertised either by a local newspaper, telephone recording, paper posted at the embassy guard post, or by the web.
Background: Spouses of embassy employees and veterans are supposed to have an opportunity to apply for vacancies at the embassies. However, as I discovered while living in Timor-Leste such opportunities are not made
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Voting

I've noticed that several embassies have social media presences but that their info is not aggregated into one place on State's web site. Why not sort and list it in an easy-to-view place based upon region/bureau to make it easier for the public to interact with DoS? Also, there should be a standard naming scheme in saying Twitter feeds such as usembassy_paraguay, instead of the embassy in Paraguay currently being called
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Voting

The 1,600 members of Open Source for America are dedicated to supporting and guiding federal efforts to make the US government more open through the use of open source software. We have established recommendations for all agencies to consider in their Open Government Plans, with these recommendations especially highlighting the need to remove barriers to the successful leveraging of open source software and open IT more
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Voting

Put visitor logs online, for any person who meets any State Department employee. Citizens have the right to know who their State Dept. employees of every type of pay grade get to meet and make deals with. For example, which oil company executives were meeting with State Dept. agents, employees, appointees, and contractors over the last fifty years? That would make some enlightening reading. It would make FOIA requests
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Voting

The State Department needs an Office of Ombudsman for Consular Affairs. An Office of Ombudsman will provide a venue for citizens to express ideas for improvement, and to complain when the Office of Consular Affairs is failing in its mission. Changes, recommendations, and complaints could be made about the many areas of responsibility for Consular Affairs such as visa issuance, passports, U. S. Citizens services, etc.
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Voting

I see that with each idea comes the option to enter tags. Most sites that allow tagging also allow visitors to visualize the data clusters with a tag cloud. Is this utility available?
The second feature I'd like to see is how ideas, specifically memes as indicated by tags, develop over a period of time. Is it possible to have a search utility, sorted by date, that shows the rise or decline of a meme over a period
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